EUGENE -- What Oregon basketball’s non-conference road schedule lacks in quantity during Dana Altman’s four seasons as head coach, it’s sure made up in quality, a run that continues Sunday at Mississippi.

The 2 p.m. matchup pits teams seeking NCAA tournament encores, each with an explosive scorer (Marshall Henderson for the 6-0 Rebels and Joseph Young for the 7-0 Ducks) and an array of scoring options. Ole Miss has four players averaging more than 15.0 points per game; No. 13 Oregon counters with four in double figures.

For Altman, the emphasis on finding high-quality road opponents began out of necessity during his 16 seasons at Creighton, where postseason credentials couldn’t rely on the Missouri Valley Conference’s weight alone. Road trips went to Dayton, the famed “Pit” at New Mexico, Nebraska, St. Joseph’s and Xavier. On neutral courts, the Blue Jays played Ohio State, Missouri and Michigan.

In 2010, he moved to one of basketball’s six “major” conferences, whose strength can often allow a less ambitious non-conference schedule. Yet Altman’s intent is the same, by bolstering the Ducks’ resume and numbing the shock of a raucous gym to ensure future conference road trips feel like home.

“We want to go on the road and play BCS teams and teams that are pretty good,” Altman said. “We’ve done some work on our scheduling the next few years and it’s going to be that same way. We want to go and get prepared.

“We went to Vanderbilt, we’ve been to Virginia, we want to go places guys want to go but we also want to make sure we’re getting ready for the Pac-12 and the road games we’ll have to have there.”

Though matchups in his first season at Oregon at Virginia and in Portland against then-No. 1 Duke may have been scheduled before his hiring, Altman has continued to seek high-level road opponents, though in sharply limited amounts as compared to other Pac-12 schools. Since 2010 Altman and UO have played at Nebraska, BYU (in Salt Lake City), UTEP, Cincinnati (in Las Vegas) and the aforementioned Cavaliers and Commodores. UO is 2-3 in true road games in his Eugene tenure, and 1-3 on neutral sites. UO faces Illinois in Portland on Dec. 14, as well.

In the same past four seasons, Arizona will have played a total of 19 non-conference games on the road, and Colorado 21. Those programs often play in road tournaments with multiple games in a row, and UO chooses to host a similar event, the Global Sports Hardwood Challenge, at Matthew Knight Arena.

“For a first road game, it’s definitely going to be a tough one,” said senior transfer forward Mike Moser. “I know for some of these young guys it will be kind of difficult, just not having our crowd and our side and getting going from the get-go without being at home is a little different. Other than that I think we’ll be fine. We’re mature enough to deal with it.”

Moser, a Portland native, is in his first season at UO but has a keen understanding the Ducks’ road successes as a player – along with future No. 1 NBA draft pick Anthony Bennett -- on last season’s No. 18 UNLV team that was upset on its home floor by Oregon.

UO’s only other road trip this season was its longest of all in South Korea against Georgetown. Still, that was in front of a mostly impartial Army base gymnasium with just 2,100 soldiers. The atmosphere should be a bit more partisan in Oxford.

“Everybody that I’ve talked to in the Southeast Conference says it’s a hard place to play,” Altman said. “This will help us.”